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> let's call a spade a spade: it's not a "goof," it's a dangerous and deceptive business practice There's a very odd tendency for people to engage with corpora

> let's call a spade a spade: it's not a "goof," it's a dangerous and deceptive business practice There's a very odd tendency for people to engage with corporate PR packages in the same way they engage in interpersonal interactions. In the abstract, sure, they get that it's a crafted artifact meant to maximize profits, but in the immediate sense... they act as though the words have any intrinsic meaning at all rather than "white noise that maximizes likelihood of profit, while ideally not instigating litigation or regulation." It's not unique to Tesla. It's every single time a major corp. issues a significant public statement, as though it's some sort of earnest missive from the founder rather than a PR-crafted artifact vetted by legal, compliance, and probably the COO and CMO, if not a board member or two. Corps are profit-maximizing engines. They are not your buddies. They are not speaking from the heart. They're not even spinning something that started off as something from the heart. They are designing cognitive drone strikes meant to optimize public reception of current business practices.

rsynnott 6y ago
> rather than a PR-crafted artifact vetted by legal, compliance I mean, if THIS was vetted by legal and compliance, they’re, er, probably not very good.
bluGill 6y ago
Many companies have learned (the hard way) that public statements are admissible to court. All public statements from most big companies go through many levels of checking to ensure they don't send a wrong message. I know of one case where the warning label on a lawnmower that rocks can be thrown conflicted with the advertising picture of a kid close to a lawnmower and therefore the company doesn't believe that warning lable. I'm not sure what came of it (probably settled out of court for big $$$). However many companies are careful what they say.
- wittyreference 6y ago
  I'm not saying they're wrong to be careful. If my words could shift the share price of an entire enterprise, I'd have them damn carefully vetted, too. I'm saying that their words are very carefully crafted, and should be engaged with as the product of artifice, not genuine expression.

rsynnott 6y ago

> rather than a PR-crafted artifact vetted by legal, compliance I mean, if THIS was vetted by legal and compliance, they’re, er, probably not very good.

bluGill 6y ago

Many companies have learned (the hard way) that public statements are admissible to court. All public statements from most big companies go through many levels of checking to ensure they don't send a wrong message. I know of one case where the warning label on a lawnmower that rocks can be thrown conflicted with the advertising picture of a kid close to a lawnmower and therefore the company doesn't believe that warning lable. I'm not sure what came of it (probably settled out of court for big $$$). However many companies are careful what they say.

wittyreference 6y ago
I'm not saying they're wrong to be careful. If my words could shift the share price of an entire enterprise, I'd have them damn carefully vetted, too. I'm saying that their words are very carefully crafted, and should be engaged with as the product of artifice, not genuine expression.